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It took MIT researchers five years to figure out how to build high-efficiency LEDs. Turns out butterflies have been making them for millions of years. Physicist Pete Vukusic at the University of Exeter in the UK has discovered light-reflecting structures in the wing scales of an African butterfly that almost perfectly mimic a breakthrough system for improving LEDs developed by MIT scientist Alexei Erchak in 2001. Insects in this species - Papilio nireus - use the iridescent blue-green spots to signal one another across great distances.

This isn't the first time Vukusic found a butterfly phenomenon that was also independently "invented" by humans. Eight years ago, he documented nanoscale structures in the wings of another species that significantly increase light absorption to give the appearance of "super blackness." A similar technology is now being developed to create stealth fabrics and coatings for the military. - Greta Lorge